EVENT| Breakers to Makers Panel 3: Changing the Game

Murad Ahmed, European Tech Correspondent at the Financial Times, speaks to Helen Goulden (Nesta), Remo Gerber (Gett) and Sofia Gkiousou (Airbnb) on how the Sharing & On Demand Economy is creating positive disruption, in policy & beyond.
Highlights:
01:11 - Which are the rules that should be broken?
04:02- “Normal people would like to share their home and guests would like to live like a local in each and every city they would like to visit”. Sofia Gkiousou on how rules need to be adapted for people, not businesses.
04:17 - Helen Goulden talks about cities are reacting to the Sharing & On Demand Economy
06:15 - Helen Goulden on how cities are taking a local approach to the Sharing & On Demand Economy
07:00 - Remo Gerber on how it’s hard to be the ‘good guy’ in a competitive space and the importance of adapting to your local market
10:56 - Remo Gerber on how technology opens up grey zones
15:13 - TfL have come up with all sorts of Uber-busting regulations. Do we run the risk of there being an overreaction because of one player?
16:01 - Remo Gerber on the TfL consultation
18:20 - What is the right strategy in approaching regulators?
20:30 - Sofia Gkiousou advises against a ‘one size fits all’ approach. It’s about understanding the needs and cultural drivers of the countries they are negotiating with.
20:51 - “We want to adapt, we want to understand, we want to find ways to work with existing structures and improve these for everyone, not just for Airbnb.” - Sofia Gkiousou
22:04 - In which areas are Sharing Economy & On Demand services most unexplored?
22:32 - Helen Goulden on how the Sharing & On Demand Economy can aid the UK public sector by increasing the availability, flexibility and affordability of services such as childcare.
25:30 - “Everywhere you look across the public sector you can think differently by applying sharing economy principles.”
30:29 - How easy is ‘positive disruption’ in the taxi industry; how are you doing it and how are you communicating about it?
31:24 - Remo Gerber on Gett’s work with the disabled community and the fare incentives for drivers
32:27 - Which cities display an innovative and adaptive approach to the Sharing & On Demand economy.
33:12 - Helen Goulden talks about how certain cities and countries prefer a local approach to the Sharing Economy: in Indonesia, moped sharing is unregulated whilst Uber is banned.
39:20 - “London is a fantastic place in the availability of data and entrepreneurial culture that helps build businesses.” Remo Gerber
40:04 - Audience question 1: Are you (Sofia) aware of people hooking up via Airbnb and are you comfortable with this?
41:07 - “We work very hard to make sure that trust is developed between the host and the guest.” Sofia Gkiousou on the work Airbnb does to ensure that users build up their own personal reputation - through connecting through media, 3rd party identity verification, peer-to-peer reviews.
43:00 - Audience question 2: When do you think hotels might acquire companies like Airbnb and move into the space?
43:42 - “We don’t feel that we operate against hotels; for us to win no one else has to lose. In our top markets at the moment, hotel occupancy is at a record high. Our research shows that we bring additional people to a destination.” Sofia Gkiousou
45:59 - Audience question 3: How do you see governments using data in innovative ways in the next 5 years?
47:53 - Helen Goulden on the tension between sharing data and maintaining commercial sensitivity.
49:48 - Remo Gerber on the data intelligence being gathered by Gett and how this can add value by being used anonymously